If I've got the p-38 low and slow to the ground, no stats will allow him to run away.
And you're right. If I go into a flat turn and the 38 climbs, I'm usually only making (a max of) a 90° turn. Once I see him climb, I leave. And yes, it's annoying to fight that way, but either the 38 is going to loose momentum, leave the fight altogether, or I'll actually get him into a turn fight.
My point is, you've (or Vad did) lost the fight as soon as you think that the spit in a flat turn is defensive fighting. It's not. My emphisis stands "as is".
Now, instead of allowing this to turn into a pursefight, why don't we try to help Vad fight a 38 in his spit? I don't know about you, but I can't help him with every single pilot in a 38, or tell him every single move to make against every move made by the 38. With that, I'll continue to post in "generalizations" until he can get a spit up and figure it out. A kind of epiphany piloting will have to occure, as does with just about every other pilot out there, once BCM is figured out.
It does help when 38 pilots, like ack-ack, come in and tell what he sees as weaknesses in his flying a 38, like he did earlier about turn fighting. I'm sure Vad said "ahhhhhhh!" when he read that. Unfortunatly, Vad also saw getting into a turn fight as a "bad" thing. That need to be cleared up, or it WILL be a bad thing.